


every star seems so near but you wouldn't know each

by pinuspinea



Series: Swan Lake remixes [14]
Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковский | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Dark, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Retellings, Loss of Identity, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:40:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinuspinea/pseuds/pinuspinea
Summary: His spells are unpredictable, and deep magic is something even more unpredictable. He watches as Odette changes, and it is almost too late that he realises that she is changing a little too much.What if Odette's curse made her lose her humanity one bit at a time?
Relationships: Odette/Von Rothbart (Lebedínoye Ózero | Swan Lake)
Series: Swan Lake remixes [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824241
Kudos: 12





	every star seems so near but you wouldn't know each

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Swan Lake comment club](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Swan+Lake+comment+club).



> I think this will be my final Swan Lake remix for a while. I have stumbled head first into the Bluebeard fandom and I'm already three chapters in to a longer fic, so it may take a while for my muse to return. But hopefully you will enjoy this one!

Tonight, the moon is bright and full and creates shadows that haunt this forest like they had been here before there ever was light. The trees reach for one another with bare branches. Frost is collecting into every nook and every hidden hole that animals have found for winter.

He hovers nearby as he always does, but Odette barely even notices him anymore. She has gotten used to him, in a way, gotten used to the way he is always right there if she just looks for him, that there is no way to ever truly be free of him.

Tonight, she has hands. Tonight, she has eyes that see the world so differently than her other eyes do, and tonight, her breath comes out in clouds of mist.

Winter will be here soon. Odette wonders if she'll have to sleep in the snow.

She doesn't ask.

* * *

The whiteness in even lonelier than she thought it would be. All the other animals are either sleeping or have flown away, and she is the only one there.

Once, her feet get stuck in the ice. He comes to her that evening and melts the ice off her. He does not chastise her. He simply looks at her and asks whether she would like help in building another shelter for herself.

She watches from her spot underneath a tree, wrapped in his cloak, as he shapes snow with his hands and his magic. He makes it strong enough that no one will be able to break in, that she will be safe there, but Odette knows it is unnatural to stay here. When the dawn arrives, her wings feel hollow and the feathers stick together uncomfortably.

If she were any other swan, she would fly far away from here, but she doesn't.

He finishes building her a shelter and comes to sit next to her. Odette stares at the snow that is pale blue in the moonlight and wonders if her eyes will ever see anything than these shades of blue and black and white.

She misses red and orange and yellow. They do not look the same with her other eyes. Nothing looks the same with her other eyes.

"Thank you," she manages to say to him. He nods, but says nothing.

Once dawn is close enough, she gives the cloak back to him and curls up tight in her newest hiding place and tries to remember what spring used to be like, what it felt like when she didn't feel so cold inside all the time, what life was before he ever entered in her life.

She can't remember, and somehow, she thinks that she'll never get to feel those things ever again.

* * *

Spring comes, but she does not get to enjoy it. The melting snow is even worse than the cold, and she wishes she could spend her nights inside in her warm bed instead of staying far too close to him.

The days are somehow easier and yet they are worse. During the days she never remembers what this feels like, only remembers that she is supposed to be a human and not a swan. It's so easy to find him in her feathery form and ask him to reverse this magic. It's so easy, because she doesn't know any better. Only as a human can she feel like this.

Sometimes she secretly wishes that he would not make her return to this form ever again. Odette would like to simply stay as a swan if it meant she would be allowed to forget everything, but that is not what he wants.

He seems to be waiting for the day when he finally gets all he has ever desired. Odette thinks that he will most likely get it all.

Sometimes she wonders if she could dive deep into the lake when he's unprepared, if she could let the icy waters freeze the breath in her lungs until it's impossible to breathe, but he would probably dive right after her. He won't let her go.

He will never let her go.

Odette watches from afar her mother coming to the lake and sitting on its shores, staring at the water where they think Odette drowned. She would like to go to her mother, to bury her head in her apron and simply cry, but even she wouldn't recognise her. She would either shoo her away or hurt her, and that makes Odette curl up tighter in her reeds.

She rests her head so that she can see the sky, the pale sky of midday, the light clouds that are torn apart on it like memories of happiness, and she tries to sleep and forget about a mother.

In the night, spring is never there. Odette wishes she would never have to live through another spring.

* * *

Summer rains come in the evenings and darken the sky before it's time for the sun to set. Odette looks for him in the rain, and he sometimes manages to surprise her.

They stand in the pouring rain and look at one another before Odette averts her eyes. The thoughts she cannot understand when she is a bird return in full force. Odette closes her eyes for a moment and takes in a few breaths, and then she looks at him again.

He looks back at her with a slight frown on his face and Odette wonders why ever he would frown. There is no apparent reason for it. He simply frowns as he looks at her and he looks so different, so different in the moonlight, and Odette thinks about those nights in the garden when she used to look at him and only feel relief to have such a good friend listening to her musings.

She used to be so young, and that was such a short while ago.

He never says anything when she is like this, never tries to force her to speak, but Odette knows that he would like her to say something. He is always thinking about how he could make her feel differently, but Odette does not think this will let go of her.

He is her only companion, and she so dearly wishes it weren't so.

"Have you noticed how the flowers bloom?" he asks her. She has. She nods.

Their conversation is stilted, not at all like it used to be. Nothing is like it used to be.

Quiet, sitting on the shores of the lake, Odette once again wonders what it would feel like to drown.

* * *

Her hands feel not like her own anymore. She spends so much more time in her swan form, so much more time with wings rather than fingers, and she sometimes looks at her hands and wonders which finger would take the place of which feather.

Her bones ache in this form nowadays as if there was something wrong with them, and when she walks and moves, it's hard not to move like an animal. She spends her days in a feathery dress, in a daze of thoughtlessness and instinct and relief at feeling the sun on her face and the water underneath her body, hiding in the reeds and not thinking, and now she looks at her image on the still surface of the lake and she doesn't recognise it anymore.

He is there. She simply looks at it for a moment longer, and then she steps back, and her eyes disappear into a world of their own.

If there are dreams which she has when she is a swan, she never remembers them, and this is like one of those dreams. When she looks away, she forgets.

She forgets she ever looked any different than this, locks that memory somewhere so deep that nothing except for death could ever dig that knowledge out of her, and she looks at her strange hands and touches and feels with them, studies the world with them, wonders at how different they feel than her wings.

He is behind her back, always looking at her, looking at what she does, always watching.

* * *

Their eyes never leave her back. She can feel the swan maidens staring at her, can feel them keeping an eye on her for him, can feel the way they guard her from herself. His loyal creations float next to her on the lake. His loyal creations take flight alongside her. His loyal creatures slip into sleep in the reeds alongside her, and they always watch her.

It's almost a relief to be in his company. That is the only moment when they stop watching. The eyes disappear from her back. She finally gets to worry only about one pair of eyes.

That night, she allows him to transform her, and then she leans against an old tree that is bent and worn and almost touching the lake's surface with its weeping branches, and she looks at the stars reflected on the surface of her lake. He comes sit next to her. Their legs nearly touch. He is radiating warmth.

There has been no warmth inside her for such a long time that it almost burns to be so close to him.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks curiously. Odette stares at the stars in front of her. She thinks about how the water would feel in their light, how it would wrap all around her, how much of a relief it would be simply to let herself fall in deeper and deeper until her body reached the bottom, until there were no more stars to fall into. She thinks about the deafening silence of water, of the pressure of it all over her, how she could let all air out of her lungs, and she knows that if she ever said these thoughts out loud, he would make more swans to watch her when he cannot be there.

He cares about her in his own, horrible way.

"Stars," she murmurs. Words are difficult to find nowadays. She sometimes forgets them completely, forgets what the sounds that come out of his mouth even mean. There are nights when he speaks and she sits numbly next to him and wonders if once upon a time she could have understood any of the things that he is so intent on telling her, but now she doesn't even know how to form her own thoughts into a form that could be shared.

Words are difficult, and each night she forgets a little bit more.

She knows she used to be a girl. She knows this the same way she knows how to fly, as naturally as anything is a part of her, but she remembers nothing of that. She remembers thinking about how she used to be a girl once upon a time, but there is no memory to accompany that thought. There is simply a thought and nothing more, nothing less.

Odette stares at the lake and all the stars that shine deep into is depths and thinks about a garden where the man sitting next to her spoke to her about stars.

"We spoke." He moves a little. The question is evident in the slight tilt of his head. "In the garden. Before..."

Before what? She must have forgotten that as well.

She forgets so many things nowadays.

He tells her, and she listens to him and looks at the still surface of the lake and wonders if these ever truly were thoughts that she had, if she ever could have thought about something else than this horrible loneliness and the emptiness and cold that occupy the room where her soul used to reside in.

She listens to him speak, and then he doesn't speak anymore, and then they sit there quietly until dawn is nearby.

Odette doesn't know why she cries or why he wraps his arms around her, but she knows that his touch is burning hot on her skin.

* * *

Some nights she does not know what is going on. She comes to the shore to him and she looks at him and she wonders what her head is doing, but there is no thinking with him, simply a horrible knowledge that she must help herself do something she cannot even remember anymore.

That night, on the shore, they look at one another and he takes off the crown that rests atop her head and she lets out a small breath and tries to think but nothing is helping her. She is a ghost; she is lost in him and the shore and the moonlight that makes her even more pale and like the other ghosts that haunt this lake alongside her.

He comes to her and he kisses her, and his kiss tastes like desperation. She wants to feel his heat, she wants him to pull her tightly against him and make her _feel_ again, but something in her breaks horribly when he touches her, but no words come to her lips. He kisses her and his hands roam on her body and they demand, and they take, and there is nothing she can to do make him stop.

She lies there, underneath him and she closes her eyes. Her body burns underneath his hands. They only leave trails of fire onto her pale skin, and she does not cry. She never cries.

She does not cry when his hips meet hers, nor does she cry when he breathes onto her skin and murmurs words of love that feel much out of place when he is inside her. She lies underneath him and her hands roam on his skin, they do not stop, they cannot stop, and she is so lost and confused and worried.

He stills against her body, and her eyes remain shut, and she remains still under him. She wants to love him and her head hurts and her eyes hurt and she would just like to ask him why he is there, why she is there, who he is and why she knows him, she cannot remember, she does not know him, but his hands are so soft as they caress her skin and as he takes her lips for another kiss that leaves her gasping and wondering just why he has kissed her.

The moon on her skin is almost as soft and gentle as his fingers as they trail the shape of this form. She opens her eyes and looks at him, and she gets lost in him.

Her head is empty of anything else. She closes her eyes and wishes time would stop here.

Time does not stop. He eventually moves, and he helps her get dressed again, and then they sit in silence and she stares at the lake blankly and wonders why his touch is still burning on her skin and why she feels even more empty inside even when he claimed a spot for himself there.

The sun arrives to her closed eyelids and she becomes herself again.

* * *

It is lonely to transform without him. Before, she had the option to not remember, the option to remain blissfully unaware, but that is gone.

Odette finds it even more lonely now when his touch no longer makes her a human, and she stares at her hands and idly wonders if they ever were different before, if others can see it from her, if there even exists such a thing as before.

The moon is pale and so is she. Odette lives in its light and tries to build nests, but the swan maidens eventually find them and claim them for themselves. Odette walks endless loops around that lake. She walks and walks and walks until she is dizzy, and then she stares at the water.

She is waist-deep before she ever comes to realise it. The swan maidens are already holding onto her, stopping her from walking any deeper, and they embrace her and claim her and set her into a position of their liking, a position that makes her human bones ache even worse, a position that feels too heavy to hold without the support of water all around her.

He is there and he looks at her and speaks to her, but his words are all mumbled up in her ears.

Odette closes her eyes and presses her head against his chest, and she dreams of something she cannot remember.

* * *

She hasn't had shoes on her feet for such a long time, but now, wrapped in that leather and nails and strings, they feel somehow even stranger than before. Odette kicks them idly and she stares at the hem of her new skirt, and he comes to sit next to her, resting a claiming hand over her hands.

Odette stills again. He must speak again, because she hears that familiar buzzing in her ears, and she looks at him with these strange eyes and wonders why he never comes to her in his bird form, why she must always come to him in this form.

He searches her face for something. His dark eyes burn with worry and he kisses her forehead and then gets up to his desk. His hands roam over strange objects. Without even noticing it, Odette gets up and comes to watch behind his back as his fingers trace strange lines on those white squares, squares nearly as white as her feathers.

His nest is strange. He hasn't adorned it with rocks and woven grasses like she has adorned her nests, but it is filled with things all the same. His nest is a whirlwind of those strange objects he seems so intent to study, and he leans over another tome as that bright flame flickers in one of those burning sticks.

Odette's hand trails on the leathery backs of those rectangles that he has lined the wall with, and she lets the touch be enough to her.

She does not notice when he gets up or when he comes to her, but by that time, night is ending. Odette bends her neck and studies how he hides the world from their eyes, and then he takes her hand. She wonders about the route he is taking them, noting that it is not the same route that they came to his nest, but he does not stop.

He takes her into another nest, a nest far more personal than the one line with all his trinkets and decorations. Odette looks at the sea of blue and white, and she looks at him as he again moves his lips and creates those strange sounds which he is so keen to make.

She stands there as he carefully lays his hands on her arms, and she watches as he peels that warming layer that is like her feathers but that does not hurt when it is pulled off her skin. He gently removes it and lays it on a thing he used to sit on in the other nest, and then he bends over to her feet.

Odette sits down and lets him take off those strange contraptions he put onto her feet when the night began. His hands move slowly as if he is scared that he might spook her off, but she knows him. She knows he would not hurt her like that.

Her feet are bare again, and she wiggles her toes experimentally. He gets up and with shaking hands, start to remove his own dark suit.

Her steps are not heard of as she pads over to him and then wraps her hands on those strange things that he is working on. He shivers and looks at her, but she studies the things that are still hidden beneath his hands, and then she helps him remove his own cover just like he helped her remove hers.

His eyes are strange as they look at her, and he gently pulls her into his most secret nest. Odette's limbs are strange, and she tries to find how they are supposed to go, and he gently wraps his arms around her and stops her from moving too much.

It's surprisingly nice to become entwined with him. Odette does not notice when sleep comes and claims her. She only notes that the same does not happen to him.

* * *

Her head feels heavy for many a day as he works on those books of his and she watches from a chair that he has prepared for her, wrapped in warm blankets, the fire roaring in the fireplace. He glances at her often, his eyes always seemingly wavering in her direction, but she smiles back at him before dozing back into sleep.

The days are strange, but the nights are even stranger. He seems to sense when the sun sets, for that is the moment he gets up and opens the heavy curtains that cover the windows. Odette usually gets up at that time and stands at the window, and she stares at the moon like he stares at her.

The same pattern repeats. It's almost comforting, the way she wakes up in his nest, shielded by his arms. He does not look like he sleeps that much. Odette wonders if she should wrap her arms around him. She wonders if that would make him feel safe enough to sleep, but when she tries, he gently smiles at her and then waits for her grip to ease before he takes her in his arms again and presses his lips to her forehead.

He is murmuring to himself again. Odette looks at the fire and hums.

He stops murmuring and looks at her.

"Odette?" he asks. She hums again and looks at him. His mouth moves in strange words that blur in her ears, but she thinks that he must ask her if she can understand, for what else could he ask?

She gets up and comes to sit in his lap, and he goes impossibly still. She nuzzles against him and preens his hair and his eyes remain so full of hesitation.

"Odette," he murmurs and then his fingers gently start preening her hair as well.

She rests her head against his neck and hums her happiness.

* * *

Eventually, she comes to understand those words that come out of his mouth. She listens to them, and she hums where it is appropriate, and he speaks even more to her even when the words become blurred in her ears again and she needs a moment to rest.

His bed is soft, and he starts to sleep in it again. Odette sometimes opens her eyes during the daylight hours and she looks at him, at the furrow of his brow, and she kisses it until his face relaxes and he opens his eyes and looks at her, and then she lays a small kiss onto his lips and goes back to sleep.

This morning is rainy, and they listen to the storm rage behind closed curtains. Odette glances at him and thinks hard for a long time.

"Your name is Wolfgang," she says. He stops in the middle of the passage from a book of poems he has been reading to her, and he stares at her.

He smiles.

"It is," he says with relief.

Odette nods her head, satisfied with remembering it, and then she curls back into her usual spot and lets him read more of those softly spoken words to her. She looks at his hand, a hand where a golden band has been for as long as she can think, and she wonders why she doesn't have a band to match his.

"And your name is Odette," he murmurs as he leans over and pushes a stray hair behind her ear. Odette listens to what her name sounds on his lips, and then she looks at him.

It's an easy thing to lean over to him and kiss him, and with curiosity, her hands study his body until he stills them against his fast-beating heart. Odette pulls away a little from the kiss and looks at Wolfgang curiously. He is shaking, his eyes are closed, and he swallows thickly many times and looks like there is something he is desperate to say.

"You're still ill," he manages to force out, though that is not what he wants to say, that much Odette realises. She turns her head a little and then she kisses his face, but he turns his cheek away.

"I want to kiss you," she murmurs, uncertain why he doesn't want to kiss her.

He swallows again, but now he looks at her.

"I know," Wolfgang says in a trembling voice. "Believe me, I want to kiss you as well, but you're still ill."

Odette huffs and allows herself to relax against his body. He seems on edge for a moment, but when she doesn't do anything, he eventually relaxes enough that he pets her hair like he usually does.

Odette falls asleep before she remembers to ask him about the ring and why she doesn't have one to match his.

* * *

The days feel stranger now. He is much more guarded, quieter, seemingly waiting for something. Odette keeps him company and tries to curl up against him during those times when their bodies require the gentle embrace of sleep, but he does not seem to want to hold her like he used to.

Odette wonders why that is and what has made him change his mind, and sorrow grows in her to see him so on edge constantly.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asks one day when he has been staring at a blank page of a journal for too long. He is pulled away from his thoughts, and he raises his eyes and looks at her.

His dark eyes seem guarded as she studies him and looks for signs of him lying when he speaks.

"Do you remember being a swan?" he asks eventually. Odette blinks.

"I am a swan."

His face sharpens for just a moment, and he looks so tired. Odette gets up and plants herself in his lap, and she takes his hands in hers and studies them curiously.

"Hands are so strange," she murmurs as she compares them. They have the same number of fingers, but his hands have something hers don't. She remembers suddenly, and she looks up and catches his eyes with a victorious look in hers. "You have a ring, but I don't."

He closes off immediately. Odette's victorious smirk is wiped away, and her hands lose their strength. When he opens his eyes again and searches her face, she is already uncertain of what she has done wrong to make him so sad.

"Do you remember why I have a ring and you don't?" he asks. Odette frowns as she thinks, but eventually, she must shake her head no.

He sighs.

"I thought as well," he murmurs.

No matter how much Odette wonders about that, he doesn't say anything.

* * *

Eventually, there comes a day when the snow arrives. Odette sits in his beautiful parlour and looks out of the window at the dark forest and the surface of the lake that seems frosty, and heavy blankets of snow form on the ground as white arrives into their world like small dancers spinning in the air.

He is right next to her like he always is, and Odette keeps looking at the snow.

"I used to love snow," she notes absentmindedly. He steps a little closer, and his hand finds the lower of her back. Together, they look at the snow.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" Wolfgang murmurs.

Odette hums in agreement and presses her head against his shoulder.

* * *

She wakes up in his bed. He is still sleeping, and she looks at him and then at the room, and her head feels dizzy.

She is half keeled over when he eventually wakes up and tries to gently rub her back. Odette feels nauseous and she has a tough time swallowing it all back, but eventually, the worst of it passes. He looks at her anxiously, at the guarded look in her eyes, at the whiteness of her face.

"Do you remember?" he asks. "Do you remember now?"

She can only nod as she wraps her arms, her precious arms around herself and presses her human face against her human legs and tries not to scream.

* * *

He lets her get dressed alone, but she also remembers those times when he had to put the clothes onto her and when he had to bathe her. She thinks about all those times when she had such trouble even thinking about anything, and she shivers as she thinks about the way he had to treat her.

He has seen all of her, he has seen the way she has not been a human, and still he has fought to keep her alive. He could have just as easily let her become a swan; he could have just as easily allowed her kisses to continue onto something more when she didn't understand what she was doing.

She dresses in silence, and for the first time in a long while, she misses having longer sleeves and a dress that covers more, and eventually, she steals one of his coats and wraps herself tightly into it.

He is waiting for her in the library just as he said he would be, and she looks at him and their eyes meet for a moment. Odette bites her lip as she sits down.

There is a heavy silence in the room.

"You remember again," he says even though they both already know it. Even so, Odette nods and confirms it for him.

"I remember now," she says and feels hollow inside in a way that is so difficult to describe. Words still are difficult to find. Odette wonders if that will always be the case, if she'll always struggle with being human again, and a horrible thought crosses her mind. He sees the way her scared eyes search for him, and he comes to her and takes her hands in his.

"Breathe," he murmurs, and she has to remind herself that she still needs to breathe even though she is a human, even though the magic has transformed her so much. She shakes like a leaf in the wind and he remains steady alongside her. Eventually, the shaking stops. He still glances at her with worry, but he does not say anything, not quite yet.

"I don't want to permanently become a swan," she says with fear twisting wild inside of her. He looks at her, and then he looks at her hands.

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs and closes his eyes.

* * *

There is no solution that they can find. They only have a night to think about something, but of course that is not enough. They are both too distraught, both too tense, both walking on eggshells. He is keeping an eye on her, seemingly fearing that she will revert back into not remembering, and she has to keep close to him because she is afraid of what might happen if she stops remembering and he isn't there, but the lake is.

Mornings arrive even in wintertime. He looks at her, and then he looks at the sky.

"How did you manage to stop me from transforming?" she asks. His face remains carefully impassive as he studies the sky that is starting to turn grey.

"I treated you like you were my wife," he says as if forming those words didn't hurt him.

Odette is kind enough not to say anything, but she follows him into the bedroom.

He does not look at her as he takes off his coat and slips into his side of bed and remains so close to the edge that he is in constant danger of falling off. Odette looks at the sight of him, and then she takes off the coat she stole from his wardrobe and she settles on the bed as well, wrapping herself under the blanket.

His back remains like a hard obstacle in her course of life. Odette stares at it and knows that he is not yet asleep. He is much too tight for that to have happened.

"Is this how it would have been?" she eventually asks in a small voice. He shifts.

"Mostly," he manages to say.

He doesn't have to say what else he would have liked, how he would have stretched her across this bed and kissed her all over and worshipped her body. Odette faintly remembers how he did that to her on the beach when he did not yet understand how far gone she was, but she doesn't know what to say about it. She can't undo what happened then.

She doesn't want to undo what happened then.

"You treated me like a wife, and still you stopped me from kissing you," she says in a small voice. His back tightens even more. Odette hadn't taught it would be possible. "You stopped me from..."

Her voice fades away. He slowly relaxes again, and he doesn't seem to sense anything.

He nearly falls of the bed as Odette lays her hand on his waist. He finally turns and looks at her.

"It wouldn't have been right," he says is a thick voice. "It wasn't you choosing it, not like I wanted it."

Odette presses her head against his chest and listens to the erratic beating of his heart. He shivers, but he does not say anything. Eventually, his hands wrap around her and he presses his face into her hair, and they lie like that for a few long moments. Eventually, she ends up pressing her head against his shoulder and tries to close her eyes, but sleep evades them for such a long time, for an eternity lasting during that short winter day.

Neither sleeps, but the comfort in being so close is enough to soothe their aching hearts for now.

* * *

They do not speak about what happened during the time Odette did not remember who she was. They do not speak about those days when he wrapped an arm around her so easily and allowed her to kiss his cheek, and they do not talk about the way they used to sit, their bodies constantly touching and him reading to her and speaking to her and being so free that he has never before been like that.

Odette wonders why now he has stopped all of that. She doesn't think that she has told him anything that would make him think that none of it was unappreciated, but it's so difficult to ask him to continue when she knows that they both believe this to be temporary.

Eventually, he will have to find something that makes his spell shift, something that stops her from completely becoming a swan even outside of his house.

They go out together, and Odette stares mutely at the thin ice that covers the lake, and then she looks at the swan maidens who loom in the darkness, their pale feathers coming out of it like ghosts traversing through the night.

During those moments, he always squeezes her hand a little tighter and looks like he is afraid of them. Odette wonders if he has lost his control over them, but she does not ask. That would be far too difficult, and she does not really want to hear the answer. She's too afraid of the chance that his creations have gained a mind of their own.

Winter nights are cold and dark, but his hand in hers is warm and keeps her grounded, stops her from stepping underneath the forest canopy like her legs want her to. Her body aches for transformation, but she knows that if she answers to that call, she might never transform back into a human again.

Eventually, they return inside. She lays one of his coats on a chair and then warms her hands by the fire. He pours himself a stiff drink and sits on the chaise lounge, looking exhausted.

Heat returns to her fingers eventually, and Odette sits on the other end of the seat and glances at Wolfgang from the corner of her eye.

"Why would they want to keep me as a swan?" she asks him. He sighs and stares at his drink.

"They are not entirely my own creations," he murmurs. "They are wild magic, and I have managed to control them mostly, but they have their own will as well."

He does not know the answer either, then. Odette muses on the matter as she stretches her arms and legs and burrows into herself while staring at the fire. The flames dance merrily in the pit. If the situation was anything else than it truly is, one could think it was a cheerful occasion, but it isn't. Odette stares at the flames, and she feels more than notices the way he glances at her.

He seems to be hesitating. He always seems to be hesitating. His usual strength is gone, his usual certainty blown away by his fears.

Odette is drowsy and nearly asleep when he gets up. He drapes a blanket across her and then stands right next to her. She keeps her eyes closed and waits.

He kisses her brow softly and leaves with a sigh.

Odette peeks at his back from behind half-closed eyelids and sees the nervousness and decision to keep his mouth shut, and she wonders what he wanted to say to her.

* * *

They do not find any answer to the problem. He tries to read his spell books and spends many long hours in a mad attempt to find something, but eventually, he comes up with nothing.

Odette is not angry at him. She sees the way he frantically searches and researches, and she sees the tired look in his eyes when he eventually admits to her that there is nothing he can do.

Each morning her bones ache and it's harder to remain in his bed. Her legs are fighting against her mind, her body taking an active role in that war to remain human. He starts wrapping his arms around her to stop her body from moving during the days, and she thanks him quietly during the nights even while during the days the fighting increases.

Eventually, her mouth opens without permission and begs him, but he holds on strong.

They have to sleep during the night as well. They sleep and sleep and sleep yet remain exhausted from those battles lasting all day.

Eventually, she tells him to just tie her up so that she cannot escape, and he looks pale and sickly as he ties her hands and legs together and wraps her in a hug.

He somehow sleeps even worse that day, and she is so exhausted that she doesn't even have the energy to go to sleep, simply staring at the ceiling and crying from being so tired.

"This has to end," he murmurs. "We can't go on like this much longer."

Odette cries and agrees.

* * *

He has to go outside for a moment just to get some breath, and she is left alone in the house. He probably thinks that she would sleep, but after crying and fighting against the binds for an entire day, Odette feels much too sore to even consider sleeping. She ends up getting out of the bed and rubbing her aching wrists, trying to alleviate the pain, when she looks at the dressing table and sees a small box on it.

She walks over to it and doesn't even think about twice when she opens the box, and she stares the contents of it for a long time.

She had forgotten about what the ring looked like, but now that she sees it, she remembers that night in the garden again, that night when he looked at her and spoke so softly and created this ring with his magic.

She picks it up curiously and studies at. The ring looks like he has been taking loving care of it for all these years, and she wonders how many times he has taken it out of that box, studying it like she now studies it.

The house is quiet. She doesn't even hear him coming back to the room.

Wolfgang doesn't say anything as he picks the ring from her fingers and puts it back into the box and closes it. His fingers shake a little as he sets the box like it was before Odette ever touched it, and he is not looking at her, but Odette is looking at him.

They do not say anything. Odette knows that he does not have anything to say, and she has just remembered how the spell started.

"You've already been treating me like I was your wife," she says in a quiet voice. He does not move.

He does not dare to move. Odette bites her lip, and then she lays her hands on the box again, right next to his hand. He remains still and silent, and Odette moves and looks at his face. Finally, he meets her eyes. They stare at one another, him looking pale and in pain, her looking at him and struggling to say the words she knows she will have to say.

"You could..."

She swallows. He lays his hand on top of hers.

"Is that what you truly want?" he asks, searching her face.

"I don't want to lose myself," she says and looks at him, and his face closes again. She presses her head against his chest and wraps her arms around him, and as if it was instinctual to him, Wolfgang wraps her into his arms and holds her tight against himself.

"Would you hate me?" he asks in whisper that is dispersed into her hair. Odette takes in a few deep breaths and fights against that feeling of nausea that is swelling in her stomach.

"I couldn't hate you for saving my life," she says.

He says nothing as he takes the box and manages to open it with just one hand. They separate just the tiniest bit.

He takes her hands and looks at her face, and only once she has managed a shaky nod, does he slip the ring onto her finger.

"My wife," he mutters and kisses her softly.

Odette feels something breaking inside herself, and she would fall to her knees with a gasp if he didn't manage to catch her.

He calls her name and tries to get an answer out of her, but she is already faded.

* * *

She is back in the garden, and she watches mutely as he conjures the same ring out of thin air that he just put onto her finger, and she feels dizzy as she stares at it.

"I will give you everything you will ever want," he murmurs and holds onto her hands. "Everything you will ever dreamed about will be yours, Odette, if you just become mine."

This is not how it happened, she thinks, and she looks at him. His mouth still moves, but she doesn't it hear it.

A teardrop falls onto his hand, and he stops and looks at her, and his hands shake just the tiniest bit. Odette brushes the other tears from her cheeks and her head feels so shaky as he quietens and now looks at her with horrible intensity.

"Do you love me?" she asks him and looks at him, and he looks back at her, startled by the question.

Is this the same Wolfgang she knows? He looks like him, acts like him, but could he ever be the same man Odette has known? Is this the same man who fought to keep her as a human, the same man who seemed distraught by the idea of having her as his wife for all the wrong reasons?

Perhaps one day he will be the same man, if things happen like they happened the first time. Odette looks at his hands and at the ring, and she closes her eyes and tries to breathe.

"Odette?" he asks. He has not answered her question.

He has never said it, not even when all his actions told her that he did. Odette wants to hear it from his lips.

"Do you?" she insists, and now she looks at him. He looks back at her, and his eyes soften the tiniest bit.

"You are the strangest and most wonderful thing I have ever come across," he says, and it is honest, but it is not what she wants to hear.

Odette takes the ring from him and studies it mutely, and then she throws it with all her might into the lake.

* * *

The curse shatters and she is free, lying on the floor of his study with him mumbling hopelessly into her hair, and she fills her lungs to the brim and he squeezes her tightly, and very slowly, she realises that he is crying into her hair.

"Do not go where I cannot follow you," he whispers in a broken voice and squeezes her even tighter.

Odette closes her eyes, and a shaky hand rises to hold onto his shirt. They embrace tightly, and there is nothing separating them anymore.

It takes him a long while to stop shaking, and she feels like her limbs are not completely her own yet, but she is alive and breathing and free. Something inside of her is lighter than she remembers it being. She feels like a weight is gone from her shoulders, and she knows that she will never be in the danger of turning into a swan against her will again.

He helps her onto shaky feet, and he looks at her with eyes that are so tired.

"I'm here," she murmurs and holds onto his hand. "I'm here, my husband."

That is enough to make him cry all new.

* * *

She still does not get used to mornings. She keeps waking up just before dawn, and she always watches the sun rising while holding her breath. Often, he wakes up and watches it with her. Sometimes, he does not wake up.

Rarely does he wake up and pull her against his chest, but this is one of those mornings.

"It's too early," he murmurs and burrows his face into her hair.

Wolfgang is as a husband much like he was as the man who lived in the house by the lake that used to so admire the swan queen. Odette sometimes looks at him, properly studies him, and he looks back at her with eyes that are always so relieved to see her there.

They do not speak of the night when her curse broke, nor do they speak of the night when he laid it upon her. Odette has already forgiven him, and he simply still feels too ashamed to bring it up.

Sometimes, Odette looks at him and he comes to sit with her on the grass in the garden, hidden by everything else in their world by the flowers that get to grow tall.

"Do you love me?" she asks with only the stars as their witness. There are no swan maidens that could feed upon his curse, no other humans that could hear what they speak about in their house by the lake.

He brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, and he smiles.

"You know I do," he murmurs back at her and kisses her.

Underneath the starry sky, they curl up closer to one another and live like two lovers who never have to think about losing the other.

There will always be a tomorrow and a tomorrow and a tomorrow.


End file.
